Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/423

 The Killing of the Khazar Kings. 389

expeditions ; it is he whom neighbouring kings obey. Every day he consults the sovereign khakan, with an assumed air of modesty, respect, and gravity. Nor may he approach him except barefoot and holding in his hand a stick, which, after saluting him, he kindles in his presence. After that he sits down with the king on his own throne to the right of the monarch. After him comes a man who is called Render Khakan, and after him again another, who is called Chaushiar. It is the custom that the supreme and sovereign king admits nobody to an interview : nobody is admitted to him except him whom I mentioned before. The government, the punishment of the guilty, and the administration of the realm are presided over by the viceroy, the khakan bh.

" It has been ordained by their ancestors, that when the sovereign king dies, a great palace (mausoleum) should be built for him divided into twenty chambers, and that in each chamber there should be dug a grave, the bottom of which should be paved with stones so crushed as to present the appearance of powdered antimony, while the whole is covered from above with quicklime. Under the palace flows a great river, and they make the grave above it, saying that this is done lest Satan, or man, or worm, or other creeping thing should approach it. When the King is buried, the heads of those who laid him to rest are cut off, that no man may know in which of the chambers his grave is situated. This grave of his is called Paradise, and he himself is said to have entered Paradise. More- over, all the chambers are tapestried with cloth of gold.

"It is customary for the king of the Khazars to have twenty-five wives, all daughters of one or other of the neighbouring kings, whom he has married with or without their consent. Further, he has sixty concubines, all re- markable for their beauty. Each one of these women dwells in a palace of her own, in a kubhd (vaulted chamber) roofed with the wood of the Indian plane. About each